Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.

Life is too short to learn German

Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

All art is immortal. For emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life.

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

Finding the meaning of life is easy. Simply get a dictionary, go to the 'L' section, and find the word 'life.'

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go.

The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.

Oh, I love London Society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.

Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.

He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.